Emergent prosperity, time and design:

Davies, Mark N. O.; Lunn-Rockliffe, Samuel; Kiprutto, Timothy; Kipkore, Wilson

doi:10.2307/j.ctv33pb01p.16

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…It is important to remember that the idea of reducing certain perceived risks in a complex adaptive system is neither straightforward nor without risk itself. Indeed, multiple case studies from around the world describe instances where changes made to particular variables have, following short-term or immediate improvement, ultimately cascaded into deleterious disturbances at other spatial and temporal scales (i.e., Lebel et al, 2010;Davies et al, 2023). In many pastoral regions, the spectre of food aid dependence (and thus food insecurity) via a complex process of political and institutional destabilisation is a prominent example of such unintended disturbance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty, pastoral knowledge and early warning: a review of drought management in the drylands, with insights from northern Kenya

Derbyshire,

Banerjee,

Mohamed

et al. 2024

Pastor. res. policy pract.

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This article explores the recent history of early warning systems in Kenya, determining key features of the entangled political, technical and conceptual processes that prefigure contemporary drought management there. In doing so, it draws out wider implications regarding drought and anticipatory action across Africa’s drylands, considering the friction between the dynamics of disaster risk management that structure formal early warning systems and those that shape pastoralist engagements with the volatile and uncertain worlds they inhabit. Surveying recent literature on pastoralism’s unique relationship with uncertainty, and associated forms of networked, relational resilience, it reflects on some of the inherent limitations of current approaches to “local knowledge” in the humanitarian sphere. In doing so, it emphasises the need for new, creative approaches to early warning and anticipatory action, which are not merely established via the external synthesis of data but are rather oriented around local pastoralist drought preparation and mitigation strategies and comprise enough flexibility to adapt to a fast-shifting terrain of challenges and possibilities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty, pastoral knowledge and early warning: a review of drought management in the drylands, with insights from northern Kenya

Derbyshire,

Banerjee,

Mohamed

et al. 2024

Pastor. res. policy pract.

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“…2014; Soper 1983). Complex patterns of fallowing, soil maintenance, tenure, labour allocation, crop diversity, regional exchanges and community decision making are also employed (Davies et al 2023). While these practices are continually shifting, at their core is an enduring continuity that we have elsewhere described as ‘cultural resilience’ (Davies and Moore 2016) and a form of ‘emergent prosperity’ (Davies et al 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Complex patterns of fallowing, soil maintenance, tenure, labour allocation, crop diversity, regional exchanges and community decision making are also employed (Davies et al 2023). While these practices are continually shifting, at their core is an enduring continuity that we have elsewhere described as ‘cultural resilience’ (Davies and Moore 2016) and a form of ‘emergent prosperity’ (Davies et al 2023). Despite this endurance, external engagement with Marakwet farmers is characterized by nearly a century of proclamations of agricultural inefficiency and impending collapse (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The latest development project to appear in Tot-Sibou began in 2012 and became operational in early 2014 (Caretta and Cheptum 2021; Davies et al 2023). Initially planned as a food security scheme for vulnerable pastoral Pokot communities living around Kolowa across the Kerio Valley, the Tot-Kolowa irrigation project underwent numerous modifications during its implementation that resulted in a range of unintended consequences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unintended consequences, conflict and resilience in a small-scale irrigation development, Marakwet, Kenya

Davies,

Moore,

Bailengo

et al. 2024

Africa

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This article examines the development, early operation and subsequent failure of the Tot-Kolowa Red Cross irrigation scheme in Kenya’s Kerio Valley. Initially conceived as a technical solution to address regional food insecurity, the scheme aimed to scale up food production through the implementation of a fixed pipe irrigation system and the provision of agricultural inputs for cash cropping. A series of unfolding circumstances, however, necessitated numerous modifications to the original design as the project became increasingly entangled with deep and complex histories of land use patterns, resource allocation and conflict. Failure to understand the complexity of these dynamics ultimately led to the project’s collapse as the region spiralled into a period of significant unrest. In tracing these events, we aim to foreground the lived realities of imposed development, including both positive and negative responses to the scheme’s participatory obligations and its wider impact on community resilience.

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Supporting the capacities and knowledge of smallholder farmers in Kenya for sustainable agricultural futures: a Citizen Science pilot project

Davies,

Haklay,

Kiprutto

et al. 2023

UCL Open Environ

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Sub-Saharan Africa is often presented as the continent most vulnerable to climatic change with major repercussions for food systems. Coupled with high rates of population growth, continued food insecurity and malnutrition, thus the need to enhance food production across the continent is seen as a major global imperative. We argue here, however, that current models of agricultural development in Eastern Africa frequently marginalise critical smallholder knowledge from the process of future agricultural design due to a lack of a methodological tools for engagement. This paper addresses this by outlining a potential means to capture and share locally produced agronomic information on a large scale. We report on a ‘Citizen Science’ pilot study that worked with smallholder farmers in Elgeyo-Marakwet County, Western Kenya, to co-design a mobile application using the well-developed Sapelli platform that easily allows farmers to identify, record and geolocate cropping patterns and challenges at multiple stages in the agricultural calendar using their own understanding. The pilot project demonstrated the technical and epistemological benefits of co-design, the abilities of smallholder farmers to co-design and use smartphone applications, and the potential for such technology to produce and share valuable agricultural and ecological knowledge in real time. Proof-of-concept data illustrates opportunities to spatially and temporally track and respond to challenges related to climate, crop disease and pests. Such work expounds how smallholder farmers are a source of largely untapped ecological and agronomic expert knowledge that can, and should, be harnessed to address issues of future agricultural resilience and food system sustainability.

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Emergent prosperity, time and design:

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Uncertainty, pastoral knowledge and early warning: a review of drought management in the drylands, with insights from northern Kenya

Uncertainty, pastoral knowledge and early warning: a review of drought management in the drylands, with insights from northern Kenya

Unintended consequences, conflict and resilience in a small-scale irrigation development, Marakwet, Kenya

Supporting the capacities and knowledge of smallholder farmers in Kenya for sustainable agricultural futures: a Citizen Science pilot project

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